The recording below is missing the last three minutes. It took me 2-3 days figuring out how to upload a jpeg image and an mp3 file on youtube. I don’t know why the last minutes aren’t there. If anyone can support me with how to get longer mp3 recordings, between 20-45 minutes (easily) available online somewhere for listening, you are welcome to contact me through email: milla.ahola@gmail.com or even better, on skype: feministsister

I’m really struggling with depression/stress/anxiety at the moment, so I would find practical help like this, very useful (helpful, supportive).

August 4, the first recording:

The first recording failed – it turned out the program on the computer only keeps one minute of audio – so, we started with another one. In the first recording I asked Daniel to describe the conflict process between us, and my short sum up of that goes something like this: First not wanting an intimate relation with me, and then not wanting to have any relation with me – finding the talks we had lacking meaning.

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Since I felt rather lost what to start talking about in order for the conversations to have any meaning for me, I suggested when we started over, for Daniel to read an online text chat that I had had a few days earlier with a stranger on NVC Link, a messenger-system where people can ask for empathy, chats and practice. I had ended up doing a role-play with someone called Chris, and both Chris and I had been playing the part of Daniel. I was curious how Daniel would read this text, so the second recorded talk started after Daniel had read this chat.

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[Daniel 0:33] “Yeah, I think it’s kind of like a good model of how our conversations were going for a really long time, when I was trying to block you, or something, so yeah, I think I recognize myself” … [Daniel 1:35] “it was fairly interesting to read, because, it’s like, yeah it gives, I guess it puts your perspective into it, that like, how does it feel to be blocked. Like, this kind of putting, like, putting up the wall or something, and then, not being able to get through that”

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[Daniel 4:13] “I was really glad I think, when we like, when I just blocked you completely, and didn’t even have these frustrating conversations, because they really didn’t have a point, I shouldn’t have had them. I feel some regret about having a lot of these conversations, like I should have just blocked you, and not like, ehm, like do this double messaging”

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[Milla 8:20] “So, maybe it’s important for you to be heard, in that you kind of, you see that, eeh, what you were choosing to do to protect yourself and your own space”.. [Daniel 8:30] “Yeah yeah, that was..” [Milla 8:32] “..was not really working, and also that you could see that it, it could also, uuh, cause, or like, have an effect on how I was experiencing..” [Daniel 8:48] “Yeah..” [Milla 8:49] “the situation” [Daniel 8:50] “..yeah yeah yeah. I think I can see both, pretty clearly”

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[Daniel 9:01] “And, I might add, on like, your analysis, or like your reflection on, on how you see like, my goals, like, of peace and being at peace, and whatever, like, this is, like, blocking someone is not my idea of peace, ehm, it’s just like, I don’t know, maybe a choice of, I don’t know, it was, the, like the least, the the, the option that was, like, minimizing the damage, for me. So, in a way, like we earlier talked about, like me describing myself as, like, selfish, and then we had some kind of conversation yesterday about this or something, and yeah, so that’s, I see this as selfish, and at the same time useful for me, like, but I can also see how it’s not considerate towards you, like, so I would say that it’s maybe not striving for peace, but rather, like, minimizing the damage”

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[Daniel 11:13] “at that time, I don’t think I was seeing any ways of how I could be considerate, but retrospectively, eeh, I would say yes, ehm, I could have been more considerate. I guess it was kind of a limited state of mind.” [Milla 11:43] “So, you were feeling really alarmed, or you didn’t see that you had many options, or just like, trying to to, to end this distress as fast as possible, or as quickly as possible” [Daniel 11:59] “Yeah, this is not a state of mind I would like to have, it’s not, it’s not pleasant, and it’s not, not eh, it’s not good for anyone. It’s kind of a lose lose situation”

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What’s surprising for me to hear in this conversation is when Daniel is saying that there’s been a willingness to connect and talk with me from last autumn, when I myself from the moment I suggested we would talk about EMC [after exchanging 20-30 sms’ when starting to talk again] experienced the behavior I role-played with Chris. Daniel is explaining this with the statement below [not talking about the whole period, but only the last three months of silence before contacting me again]

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[Daniel 19:30] “Ah, if you mean, if you mean, by the three months that I prioritized on my school, I don’t count it as, well, technically, technically the blocking, deciding just by myself to discontinue the conversation, yeah, that’s the same. Ehm, it’s just personally not the same for me, maybe because of, eh yeah, because that was because of school and not because of not wanting to talk to you anymore. That’s why I contacted you on my own after I finished school. So, for me, I see it for myself, I see that completely different from the earlier thing, but I understand how you, I understand how you, how you recognize the same strategy in blocking, like, meaning, unilaterally deciding about when a conversation ends or starts”